While attending college and playing football, Jeff attended Fellowship of Christian Athlete meetings. Over several months he studied the old and new testament of the Bible to make a decision on Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. On April 28, 1976 Jeff acknowledged belief and faith in Jesus as his personal Messiah. As a consequence of a changing lifestyle, his parents hired professional deprogrammers and had him kidnapped on two separate occasions six years apart. The first was to attempt to convince him Jews do not become Christians. The second was to remove him from a dangerous situation. The campus bible study Jeff attended evolved into an authoritative bible cult. He left the group a couple times on his own volition, but returned. However, in the summer of 1983, during the second intervention, he was given the tools to believe in the Lord and have the courage to leave the destructive group for good. With the grace of God and prayers of many people, Jeff stood strong in his beliefs; particularly that Jesus is the Messiah. Jeff grew up in a traditional conservative Jewish home in the Detroit suburbs and played football while attending the University of Illinois. He received his degree in Business Administration (B.S. 1978) and had successful careers in both restaurant retail and financial services industries. Later, Jeff obtained a Masters in Public Administration and is currently in administration on the University of Illinois at Urbana campus. He is a co-founder of the Champaign-Urbana Theatre Company (CUTC), a community theater group and has produced dozens of plays, concerts and musicals in the central Illinois area. Jeff has been married to his beautiful wife Geri since 1978, has three grown children and attends Meadowbrook Community Church in Champaign, Illinois.
